Beginnings
by Aldrae
Summary: He would often lie awake, under the blanket they shared, watching her face as she slept. Slight Johan/Nina, no matter how you look at it. A bit dark.


Disclaimer: I do not own monster, Johan, Tenma or Grimmer. Now leave me to cry in peace.

Beginnings

By Aldrae

He had grown up to the sound of her breathing beside him.

When they were babies, their mother put them in the same crib, so he was told. He was too young to remember. But he did know that his earliest memories included images of her, a not-quite-replica of himself, sleeping softly beside him. Her breathing had always been quiet, her breath was always warm, and it always had the faint scent of peppermint and something that reminded him, curiously, of burnt sugar.

He had always been something of an insomniac, even as a child. The most he could manage, even at four years old, was five hours of sleep.

And those hours were inevitably plagued by nightmares.

So he would turn over on his side, his body facing hers under the blanket they both shared, and watch her sleep.

It was curiously like staring at himself in the mirror, and yet it wasn't.

To pass the time, he usually made a game of contrasting his image with her own. They had the same nose, small, straight and perfectly formed, like their father's nose. He knew. He had seen the picture his mother kept hidden between the pages of the red book on the third bookshelf. His mother did not know he had seen. She thought they would be safer... happier... the less they knew.

So he pretended not to know.

He liked their nose. It was strange, though, that it looked prettier on her.

Their mouth was their mother's, perfectly formed, full lipped and pale. Hers had the faintest coral pink flush on the soft skin where her upper and lower lip met. He was not sure whether his were the same.

He liked her mouth.

Her hair was full and blonde, like his. But here there were slight differences. His hair was a very light blonde, and had the slightest tendency to curl. Her hair was straight, and darker than his. It reminded him of the trademark gold of the fairytale princesses in those picture books... the ones she liked... the ones that always had happy endings.

His skin was pale. It remained so no matter how long he played in the sun. Her skin tanned easily. In the darkness of their room, his skin glowed just a little bit brighter than hers.

He had his mother's skin. She had their father's.

There were other differences too. She smiled more easily, and laughed more frequently than he did.  
His smiles were rare, and hardly ever happy. He only laughed, simply and honestly, whenever they played together.

She could love everyone and anyone. He only loved her.

...and their mother, of course. What child did not instinctively love its mother?

But Anna was different. Anna deserved everything that he could give.

Every single thing.

He was the boy, and she was the girl.

And this was the difference that bothered him the most.

He had always worn girl's clothes, for as long as he could remember. Every morning, his mother would bathe them together in the large, old fashioned claw footed tub. Then she would dress them, very carefully, in identical clothes. She would do Anna's hair first, and then carefully brush his. She would put the hairpiece on him, then tie it neatly with a red ribbon, in the exact same way she tied his sister's hair. It never occurred to him that it was strange, the pink dresses, ribbons and frilly panties. He knew parts of their bodies were different, but he never really thought about it... at first. When he was old enough really notice the difference between them, he did not like it.

'Why is mine different from hers?' He had asked their mother.

'You are a boy. She is a girl.' She had said. 'You are a boy, but you must not let anyone know that.'

It occurred to him then, for the first time, that their mother had not wanted a boy. And looking down at that part of him that made him male, he could not honestly say he blamed her. Anna's was simpler, neater, and prettier.

He had not wanted to be different.

He learned to put the hairpiece on himself, to dress himself like Anna, to soften his voice when he spoke so that it would sound exactly like her own. It soon became instinctive. The softer voice came naturally with the feminine clothes.

And he liked it because, when they were clothed, no one noticed the differences. He became her. What was hidden under their clothes did not matter.

The only time he became himself again was when they were alone, he and Anna.

'Protect your sister. That is what good boys should do. In this wicked and dangerous world, you two are all each other really have.'

He saw what she saw, and suffered what she suffered. He was her, and yet he was not her.

So he took her pain upon himself... her inept messiah... but he could not take it away.

He was her, yet he was not her.

Even when they were clothed, their eyes made them different. The colors were the same vivid blue. Their shapes and sizes, were also the same. They both had their mother's eyes.

But their expressions were radically different. If they both had their mother's eyes, then Anna had her wide, innocent, happy eyes. Johan had her narrowed, haunted eyes. The eyes she had acquired after hate and suffering robbed her of her innocence, after misery and anger bred the monster inside her.

He had a monster inside him too. An evil thing he did not want his sister to see.

She would hate him if she did. She would reject him the exact same way their mother had.

And death would be better than that pain.

His eyes were too much like his mother's. Perhaps this was really why she had not wanted him.

He was far too much like her, just a little... uglier... inside.

He realized this on the day he committed his first murder.

He was not yet six years old.

The End


End file.
